Deaths Registered

For the year 2004, there were 14,050 deaths registered. This was 889 less than the previous year’s total of 14,939, a decrease of 6.0%. The total number of death registrations in 2002 was very similar to that observed in 2003 at 14,931.

As has been the trend for previous years, the percentage contributions of the four regions to death registrations in 2004 were as follows: South Eastern with 6,496 (46.2%), Southern with 3,235 (23.0%), Western with 2,424 (17.3%) and finally North Eastern with 1,895 (13.5%).

The years 2003 and 2002 had comparable percentage and absolute regional contributions when they had the respective values of 7,317 (49.0%) and 6,929 (46.4%) for South Eastern, 3,139 (21.0%) and 3,343 (22.4%) for Southern, 2,468 (16.5%) and 2,540 (17.0%) for Western and 2,015 (13.5%) and 2,119 (14.2%) for North Eastern.

The three leading parish with respect to volume of registrations were again St. Andrew, Kingston and St. Catherine with 2,224 (15.8%), 1,980 (14.1%) and 1,778 (12.7%). Together, these parishes accounted for 42.6% of all deaths registered in the year. The circumstance was similar in 2003 when the contributions from these parishes were respectively 2,621 (17.5%), 2,286 (15.3%) and 1,821 (12.2%). In 2002, the leading parishes were Kingston with 2,314 (15.5%), St. Andrew 2,222 (14.9%) and St. Catherine with 1,800 (12.1%).

Regarding monthly death registration totals, January had the highest number in the current year with 1,442 (10.3%) as had been the case for 2003 and 2002, when it had 1,560 (10.4%) and 1,492 (9.9%) respectively. Additionally, months with high registrations in 2004 were March with 1,249 (8.9%) and June 1,240 (8.8%). In 2003, December and February followed with 1,350 (9.0%) and 1,294 (8.7%). In 2002, the months which followed January were July and October with 1,407 (9.3%) and 1,293 (8.6%) respectively.

(Table 10a)

TABLE 10a: DEATHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF REGISTRATION